Saturday, March 29, 2014

As lifespans have extended, so has the age of emotional maturation. Evidence for this fact is more than anecdotal. A 2013 British study of male psychology found that new generations of Peter Pan men now finally reach emotional maturity at age 43, eleven years after women, who emotionally mature by age 32.

Wednesday, March 26, 2014

On Christmas Eve of last year, Amazon filed a patent for anticipatory delivery. You can read it here. The Irish Times explains how microdata and personal branding have intersected so exactly that Amazon expects that it knows what you want before you even know you want it; it will purchase the item you want before it occurs to you to purchase it, and ship it preemptively:

The online retail giant now wants to start shipping items to customers before they have even ordered them. Taking the buying process to the next level, Amazon has developed a system that pre-emptively delivers goods to customers based on their previous purchases.

The
company believes it can predict shoppers’ needs so precisely, that it
wants to have a package in transit to them, before they have placed the
order.

The e-commerce juggernaut has obtained a patent for
what it calls “anticipatory package shipping”, a system whereby the
company anticipates buying habits and sends potential purchases to the
closest delivery hub, waiting for the order to arrive, or, in some
cases, even shipping directly to a customer’s door.

According
to the patent filing, items would be moved from Amazon’s fulfilment
centre to a shipping hub close to the customer in anticipation of an
eventual purchase.

“In some instances, the package
may be delivered to a potentially interested customer as a gift rather
than incurring the cost of returning or redirecting the package,” the
patent reads.

“For example, if a given customer
is particularly valued (according to past ordering history, appealing
demographic profile, etc), delivering the package to the given customer
as a promotional gift may be used to build goodwill.”

Amazon
says the system is designed to cut down on shipping delays, which “may
dissuade customers from buying items from online merchants.”

In
deciding what to ship, Amazon said it may consider previous orders,
product searches, wish lists, shopping-cart contents, returns and even
how long an Internet user’s cursor hovers over an item.

See other reports here and here. As Amazon walks an insidious line between psychological intrusion and arrogant clairvoyance, not one word is said about how intrusive and manipulative this is. The patent doesn't say it, but presumably the anticipatory ordering function will also reflect Amazon processing previous buyers' personal information on social networks. Imagine if this concept, or something like it, was used by other businesses. Is a convenient service really worth so much? Why are all these initiatives accepted so passively by the public, with no regard for their larger implications?

Amazon additionally seeks to undercut the competition in shipping by setting up drone deliveries which will ship your order in 30 minutes or less. The drone program is called Amazon Prime Air. The program has a few years of R&D to go; it also has to pass Federal Aviation Authority regulations in the US. But on 7 March 2014, the Daily Mailreported that a transport judge recently dismissed afine enforcing an FAA ban on commercial unmanned aircraft in the US.

One friend, C., on hearing this, expected that people will shoot the drones down, steal their packages and sell the contents on eBay, hence completing a near-perfect Internet Circle Of Life. In the meantime, sit tight and await the drones. Below the jump, see the drone package delivery promo video.

Kim Dotcom, one of the world's most wanted cyber fugitives, on
Tuesday gloated over a deal that will see a cloud storage firm he
founded while on bail listing on the New Zealand stock exchange and
valued on paper at NZ$210 million ([CAD] $200.7 million).

The flashy internet mogul, who also goes by the name Kim Schmitz, is
fighting a bid by U.S. authorities to extradite him from his lavish
estate in New Zealand to face online piracy charges over the now closed
file sharing site Megaupload.

The New Zealand government in early 2012 arrested Dotcom at his
mansion near Auckland in a SWAT-style raid requested by the Federal
Bureau of Investigation. Dotcom is free on bail as he fights extradition
although his movements are restricted.

Indicted. Raided. On Bail. All assets frozen without trial. But we don't cry ourselves to sleep. We built #Mega from 0 into a $210m company.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 24, 2014